Black Friday – This is just ridiculous

We’ll be running quite a few deals today, but you must admit, with money tight, shops limiting deals and websites clearly unable to cope with the load, it’s turning nasty.

Frustrations are already running high. On Good Morning Britain a simple live shot of Asda opening the doors ended up with several people falling over and getting trampled on as people fought for reduced TV’s. Meanwhile, in Tesco Edmonton, banners are ripped down and boxes pushed out of other peoples hands as a fight for bargains commenced..

The solution, for many years, has been to do everything online, but sadly this is out of the question as all the major websites crumble under the load. 503 “Bad Gateway” messages, blank pages, broken transactions and queuing systems deployed with simply ridiculous queue times. Clearly these major stores (Currys, PC World, Game, John Lewis, Tesco Direct and so on) don’t have the infrastructure in place for peak loading like this, so start worrying now if you plan to shop from home on Boxing Day.

What happened to the spirit of Christmas?

Punch-ups, fights, mobs forcing staff out of the way, burly security guards in your local supermarkets and electrical stores. People don’t give a stuff about each other. It’s all about getting that deal for yourself and to hell with anyone that gets in the way.

Forced short-term panic as people attempt to grab a bargain brings out the worst in people.